What is america - Essay Example

Only on StudentShare

Extract of sampleWhat is america

Sitting Bull, a leader of the Lakota Sioux says: "The life my people want is a life of freedom" (Foner 1999, p. 49). Ideas of freedom and liberty define America and its style of life influenced by historical events and struggle for independence. For a long time, freedom was at length granted the slaves, not as a measure of social justice, but as an act of war. Emancipation came as a more or less accidental by-product of a titanic conflict between two powerful classes, each seeking in its own self-interest to dominate the Federal government, and neither concerned with the moral aspects of slavery (Bigsby, 2006). Studies of ethnicity in the United States have tended to emphasize the significance of large-scale social, economic, and political processes to account for the demise or endurance of hyphenated-Americans. It has been shown that, after arriving as immigrants, such groups search out economic opportunities and employ ties of common origin to create or occupy economic niches. "The idea of wage slavery served to deconstruct, as it were, the sharp contrast between slavery and freedom, to expose the forms of coercion and hidden inequalities inherent in ostensibly free economic institutions" (Foner 1999, p. 58)
Long struggle against oppression has created some stereotypic impressions of American as liberals and fighters. ...

Summary

America represents a unique culture and land shaped by historical and political traditions, social and cultural values of different nations. Culture is one of the main ways people express their identity and ethnicity. To some extent, culture reflects a person's identity and helps him/her to preserve unique national values and rituals…

Tags

Related Essays

A widespread process of imperial expansion into Africa and Asia resulted, often with brutal consequences for the indigenous population due to Christian missionaries who wre dispatched to convert the native peoples. Americans became increasingly aware of world markets as developments in transportation and communication quickened the pace of commerce and diplomacy. The automobile and airplane helped shrink distance, and communications innovations such as radio and film contributed to a national consciousness. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, policy makers had sought to isolate America...

The idea of America brings to ones mind the picture of a land that promises liberty, equality and fairness, economic well being, innovation and most of all, individual freedom. The Statue of Liberty in a way depicts the idea of America. The Statue of Liberty stands for enlightenment and freedom from oppression. The inscription on the Statue of Liberty reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." This very inscription shows...

This is the main reason why many of the indigenous cultures and their contributions to the modern civilizations are often ignored. This essential nature of history is clear in the examples of the indigenous cultures of America. "Historians of remote places and peoples are the romantics of the human sciences, Ahabs pursuing our great white whale, dimly aware that the whole business is, if coolly considered, rather less than reasonable."...

In the second and third chapters, Shannon demonstrates the fact that the institutions like the church heavily regulated the way the society was run. With use of examples from significant scholars and historians like Gilberto Freyre and Frank Tannennbaum, he brings to the fore the fact that the church had separate norms for dealing with the slaves. Further, there are notes on how American slavery was crueler as compared to slavery in Britain or Latin America. In this context, it may be seen that the church had an important and significant role to play in the characterization of the nature of...

17th century but in 1664, the first legislation for slaves was passed by Maryland that said, all “Negroes or other slaves hereafter imported into the province shall serve for life, as should their children. It also stated that any white woman who forgot her status and married a slave would have to serve the master of her husband. All children born into such a union would be slaves as well (Middleton, pg. 324)....

Enthusiasts of the myth of American exceptionalism need a radical change on the conception of the nation and the world around, if any efforts against racism, human right violation, and other ills are to bear fruit....

8 pages (2008 words)Essay

Got a tricky question? Receive an answer from students like you!Try us!

Didn't find an essay?

Contact us via Live Chat, call us at +16312120006or send an email to support@studentshare.net